Connecticut western news., 1887-09-14
TURKISH SCHOOLS.

{lUKkIOT1 OCI1OOLO.
 Teaching the Young Idea in the |9 Ottoman Empire.
 The Branches Taught in Pri- E l mary and Normal Schools. Not until a Turkish child reaches his sixth or seventh year docs his education begin and his first day at school is cele- brated with ceremonies that are unheard of in America, says s. s. Cox in Youths Companion. No other such ponies are [ to be foand as the spirited iron gray ponies of the east, aud one of these is gorgcously caparisoncd for the new pu- piL who is met at his fathers house by all the school, dressed in holiday i clothes. I { A priest makes short prayer, the child is placed upon his pony, and the pupils, males and females, are formed in double line. The procession moves, singing hymns as they go, with the little hero of the day following, and thus he is initiated into the new world of learn ing. s5
 | In the primary schools boys and girls are educated together. The teachers are taken from the priesthood, and from fthe graduates of the theological univer- tsitics who have learned to read the 'Ko- .ran,' which is written in Arabic, and which all good Musselmen must learn l Aowjto read. Persons of this class of teachers are consequently stringent re- fgionists, and some of them are quite fhna6cal. If the pupil does not acquire much discipline or information pertain ing to modern material progres 8, it is because the twig is not bent in that di- rection.
 A primary school is composed of one or two rooms, or "holes in the wall, J with three divans for the pupils, and a seat for the teacher. The pupils sit ,cross-legged in line on the divans, 'holding their books on their knees and rcciting all at the same time, in loud, shrin voice. They learn..grammar and the foar rules of arithmetic.
 When they are able to read from the Koran a3antle, they take up writing, and, ps there are no writing tables or desks, they hold, their copy-books in their hands. This is allthey education they re- ceive in the primary schools.
 Besides the primary, there are four Superior schooisy except the military and naval schools, and the school of medi cine, established in 1880, and outside o1 these no education is to be had. Wealthy men engage European teachers to hell their children in the study of languages and modern science; but the common people have to satisfy themselves with the little that is to be obtained at the primary schools. If any one is astonished that the governing class in Turkey generally talk French, and often Eng ish, Greek, Italian and German, it may l De stated that the Turk has an aptitude, Bike the Russian, for tongues, and make. his necessity the mother of his-study l { During the reign of Sultan Abdul Medjid, some thirty-fv years ago, ar l effort was made to spread normal schools throughout the Empire, but without success. It is only during the reign O. the present Sultan that the matter O. education has been earnestly taken up In the course of eight or nine years, th' Administration of Public Instruction ha. established throughout the Empire 1T Europe, Asia and Africa, three hundred sand elghty-eight primary and norma schools, and last year there were twenty thousand and ninety-three students. Besides these, there are eighty pri mary and normal schools in Constant
 nople, in which there are five hundred and forty students, two hundred ant SCVcuCy -ANC OCAuS III CAO INV oSAAOO', SAA'
 only one in the empire, and six hundred and thirty -four in private schools. Th' programme of the studies is divided int
 four years, and the pupils must recite b. heart, beside writing down the lessons, which include calligraphy, arithmetic history, grammar and theology. Nor ltime, however, is given to the study O Fthe Koran than to anything else.
 No account of the education of young Turks would be complete without som' Preference to the storytellers of the East who have as much influence as the pro sfessors of mathematics and history. II
 the early training of the child by it
 nurse and tutor, wonderful stories ar' ,stold to him to inculcate moral and reli tgious truths, and by them he is taugh fthat Ike must not be afraid of death
 thatshe must not be astonished at any
 thing, no matter how strange; and tha
 he is not obliged to say anything in con
 xersation that will be against his owr Ersinterests.